New Literary Agent Listing: Mia Dakin
firstwriter.com – Tuesday January 6, 2026
Handles fiction, nonfiction and translation across genres, with interest in stories centred on family dynamics, coming‑of‑age, multigenerational narratives, friendship over time, romance with strong supporting casts, and fiction with a speculative twist. Also seeks narrative and memoir‑driven nonfiction with a fresh angle, reinterpretations of familiar subjects, works exploring the future through lessons from the past, and cookery projects with strong platform potential and long‑term career scope.
New Publisher Listing: Guillemot Press
firstwriter.com – Monday January 5, 2026
Independent publisher specialising in short forms, producing poetry, non‑fiction and occasional short fiction in pamphlets and other small formats, with a strong emphasis on high‑quality, sustainable materials and collaborations with artists and illustrators.
Dreaming of writing your novel this year? Rip up all the rules!
theguardian.com – Saturday January 3, 2026
After 35 years of teaching fiction writing, the prize-winning author shares her wisdom. First tip? Don’t write what you know…
Beginning
I don’t think it’s a bad thing to want to write a first sentence so idiosyncratic, so indelible, so entirely your own that it makes people sit up or reach for a pen or say to a beloved: “Listen to this.” A first line needn’t be ornate or long. It needn’t grab you by the lapels and give you what for. A first line is only a demand for further attention, an invitation to the rest of the book. Whisper or bellow, a polite request or a monologue meant to repel interruption. I believe a first line should deliver some sort of pleasure by being beautiful or mysterious or funny or blunt or cryptic. Why would anyone start a novel, “It was June, and the sun was out,” which could be the first line of any novel or story? It tells you nothing. It asks nothing of you.
Not everyone agrees with me, nor do all great novels have memorable first lines. Pull books from your shelf and you’ll find plenty that start with a month or day of the week plus the weather. Maybe there’s a good argument: if you orient your reader on some level immediately, they will be ready for disorientation on others. Flatness can be a screen upon which brightness may be projected. Disorientation is one of the duties of fiction.
No, I insist. A generic first line is a failure of nerve.
Predictions: what lies ahead for the book trade in 2026?
thebookseller.com – Monday December 29, 2025
As we enter 2026, it is clearer than ever that the way audiences discover and consume content is rapidly evolving, and our priority must be to evolve with them – not just maintaining our existing readership but actively reaching and building future audiences.
There are huge opportunities if we are smart about how we reach readers. At HarperCollins we are seeing global success with responsive, reader-driven publishing, subscription boxes and TikTok Shop and – crucially – developing strategies that are founded on a comprehensive understanding of the reader.
AI enables us to dramatically change the way we interact with and grow audiences. The opportunities are genuinely exciting – finding new ways to help readers discover books they will love, innovating in the ways we market and reach audiences, building new channels and adapting to new methods of consuming content.
New Literary Agent Listing: Mara Hollander
firstwriter.com – Thursday December 18, 2025
Handles fantasy, romance, mystery, horror, and upmarket or book club fiction, with interest in speculative elements. Also considers thrillers and science fiction, though more selectively. Not open to non-speculative historical or literary fiction, memoirs, prescriptive works on Christianity, astrology, or witchcraft, or books using multiple personality disorder or schizophrenia as plot devices unless written by authors with lived experience. Particularly interested in works featuring Jewish characters and traditions, political fantasy, rebellions, revolutions, explorations of religion, magic, and science, queer romance, accurate sports depictions, and horror involving multi-level marketing. Nonfiction sought includes platform-driven, narrative works that challenge assumptions or teach through storytelling, especially on US health care and competitive figure skating. Open to submissions the first seven days of most months.
Gareth Brown Expands Access to Goldsboro Writing Academy with New Scholarships
firstwriter.com – Monday December 15, 2025
Novelist Gareth Brown has announced financial support for three new scholarships at the Goldsboro Writing Academy, opening opportunities for aspiring writers to join the Academy’s 2026 and 2027 programmes at no cost. The first of these fully funded places will be available from March 2026.
New Literary Agent Listing: Isobel Boston
firstwriter.com – Monday December 15, 2025
Represents authors and illustrators working in pre-school, novelty, picture books, narrative non-fiction, general non-fiction, gift, comics and graphic novels, high-end activity and middle grade. Interested in inventive approaches to familiar themes, evergreen subjects, passion projects from diverse new talents, innovative formats that push boundaries, and visually extraordinary books that spark curiosity and wonder. Building a list of exceptional children’s book creators with a focus on originality, innovation, and longevity.
SONIA PILCER: The literary taboo of AI
theberkshireedge.com – Sunday December 14, 2025
OK, I collaborate with artificial intelligence. Writers are not supposed to admit this out loud. When I say it, academics bristle, journalists look wary, and my writer friends go still. Yet after 10 years of silence, it is this unlikely partnership that has brought me back to the page.
My son Jake lives in Los Angeles and works in artificial intelligence. One morning, driving his daughter to preschool, he asked a chatbot to tell her a story about her grandmother. To my astonishment, it mentioned my 19th-floor apartment in New York, my doorman, how I walk on Broadway to Zabar’s. That was my introduction.
Back home, staring at the empty screen of my phone, I clicked ChatGPT, which Jake had hastily installed, despite my protest. On impulse, partly out of desperation, I typed a question I was not sure anyone could answer, human or machine. “Can you help a blocked writer?”
After I published my sixth novel, in 2014, the writing turned toxic for me. I didn’t even want to pen a shopping list. Jake’s casual demonstration cracked something open. After a pause, it answered:
As a creative writer, you might find AI useful. It can help brainstorm ideas, overcome writer’s block, offer new perspectives, or engage in exploratory conversations to spark creativity.
New Publisher Listing: Swift Press
firstwriter.com – Friday December 12, 2025
An award-winning independent publishing company that launched in June 2020. Publishes fiction and a wide range of nonfiction.
The BSME and Caitlin Moran launch Young Writers’ Prize
inpublishing.co.uk – Thursday December 11, 2025
The British Society of Magazine Editors (BSME) has announced the launch of the BSME & Caitlin Moran Young Writers' Prize: a new annual award designed to discover and support young writing talent aged 18-25 from across the UK.
The prize, announced at the BSME Awards 2025 at Rosewood London, specifically targets young people who show real promise, but lack the connections or financial resources typically needed to break into journalism.
The BSME says winners will receive not just prize money, but a year of personal mentorship from Caitlin Moran, work experience with leading UK editors, and genuine pathways into the industry.
Caitlin Moran said: “At fifteen, I was on a council estate in Wolverhampton, obsessed with the idea of being a writer, but clueless as to how I could get ... there. Into the rooms where it all happens. And then I won my whole career— my whole future— in a writing competition. God bless everyone behind the 1990 Observer Young Writer of the Year, who gave me my first bylines, and showed me those rooms.
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